This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Pinched between the dropping temperature and what seems like back-to-back social constraints on our time, December can feel like a month calculated to drive us bonkers. But in my previous life, as a cook, I learned how to survive the season.

At the dismal end of an unpromising cooking career, I was grilling 200 steaks a night at a dinner theatre.

This is not to denigrate the owners, who worked hard to pack the house, or the actors, who animated the food-themed murder mysteries. But watching stuffed chicken breasts slowly overcook in a steam tray, waiting for the cue from the dining room (“Count Soufflé has been murdered!”), it was not what I envisioned when I went to cooking school.

At Christmas we worked for 21 days straight, often with daily matinées and evening services. It was not a large kitchen, and halfway through the month I became alarmed. Once we had pre-plated salads for that night’s service of 180 diners, where would we start piling gnocchi for tomorrow’s lunch of 140, or making cakes for 230 people the following day? Where in the cramped space would we start storing sacks of flour, cases of striploins and buckets of deep-fryer oil, as the week wore on?

Sensing my panic, the chef told me to take a breath and calm down. “We’re going to pump out today’s meals,” she said. “Then we’re going to start figuring out tomorrow. No problem there, right?” I nodded. “What we’re not going to do is worry about the day after tomorrow. We can’t. We don’t have space right now, in the walk-in or in our heads.”

This was wise, leaderly advice. We can all practice this during the holiday season, when we feel like we might break apart from all the commitments we’ve made, as hosts or as guests.

I understand that December can be stressful. For every awesome annual bash we look forward to, there are a half dozen office parties, gatherings for our fractured families and various friends who may only remain friends if we see them this month.

And all the while, we still have jobs to do. Unless we are children, we don’t get two weeks off to fit it all in.

As guests (some married children of divorce can rack up four family Christmas dinners) our obligations to pick up wine, flowers and send thank you notes can feel like the walls of December are closing in on us. As hosts, we must think of every little thing.

In September, I found myself put to this test, facing a perfect storm of hosting duties, five times in one week.

On Sunday I was hosting lunch for 20 in a movie theatre, then dinner for 9 at home. There was another lunch on Wednesday, a dinner on Friday, and on Saturday, a dinner for my book’s publisher and her crew, scheduled months in advance, one never expects it to come to pass. There was a last-minute possibility of a sixth meal, cooking for world champion eater Kobayashi, but with writing deadlines it wasn’t realistic.

Planning menus, I doubled up on recipes, so that on some days I was cooking for multiple events. Mostly, things went well. But mistakes and distractions were plentiful. At the movie theatre I drank a glass of wine, meaning I had to find a designated driver (I still have a G2 license), putting me behind schedule. Over the week I forgot a guest’s corn allergy and served her cornbread, I left a let a pot of oil fill the room with smoke (mistakenly reading the thermometer at 220 Celsius as Fahrenheit), sending one guest to the washroom to splash her eyes with water. In my loopy state on Friday, hoping to dash to the finish line, I thought it would be quicker to put five dishes on the table at once, rather than course it out.

The result was more smoking oil, and forgetting key ingredients in the food. By Saturday the house smelled like the staff change-room of an English pub, from all the deep-frying.

Getting multiple foods on the table at the same time is a common problem. No one wants to start eating until the host is seated, but often this results in several dishes being served, ten minutes apart, rapidly cooling. The tip for this is to know your limits while planning your menu. Sauteeing green beans and making gravy at the last minute creates a gridlock. Only have one dish that needs any fuss just before being served, with everything else merely holding temperature in or on the oven. And before you're ready to serve, make certain that space is cleared on the table. You can lose another five minutes as guests frantically start moving flowers and bottles to make room for the food.

In September, each day I awoke hoping that guests would just cancel, so I could focus on the rest of my responsibilities.

I think most of us feel this way by mid-December. But if cooking or hosting isn’t your job, it’s okay to cancel, so long as you do it in advance. Just like real work, at a certain point you’re burned out and then you’re no good to anyone. You’re allowed to take personal days off from socializing.

My advice is to add some to that of my former boss, is to take a breath, calm down, work no more than two steps ahead, prepare large batches of food for multiple uses, accept imperfection and when in doubt walk away.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com